Changed impression

Time flies so fast. I cannot believe I’ve leaving in Japan over 4months. When I came here for the first time I was so frustrated, nervous and closed my mind. I wanted to go back and regret my decision to come to Japan because I thought I’ll never be getting used to it. But right now I regret what I did before like why I was passive people & why I haven’t tried hard something like that.

As the old saying goes, “This too, shall pass away“. Finally it’ll be pass away but when I’m in the situation I want to run away. It is just a moment. When it’s gone it will be good memory I’ll never forget. I remind it every time when I encountered to difficult problem but it’s not easy to overcome.

I didn’t do my best at first but as my friends from Korea, Japan and any other country helped me to be changed. As I set my mind everything was changed also.

At first I thought Japan is too much all the time like too clean, too kind and too arranged. So I felt it is cold such as inhuman. I didn’t go out often even in my dormitory because I was afraid. But right now I can take time to study in the café and go shopping by myself and I’m not afraid to talk with people any more. I’m getting used to japans’ life.

There was a big gap between my expectation and real life in Japan so I had hard time to get used to it. I think that Japan and Korea are so close, yet so far. We cannot say distinct difference when it comes to appearance but in inside of our mind there is so many.

At the beginning of the semester Japan looked cold because everything looked so perfect. People are stylish and put on makeup everyday and they are too kind so I thought it is unrealistic. But right now I cannot imagine no makeup Japanese and dirty street and the people who angry all the time. I cannot even drop a piece of paper in the street. I’m getting used to….

                                     

When I open my mind to accept Japan, it was such a good country to live. To open my mind there were many things that helped me. My Japanese friends and this class also and my experience. I’ve learned about Japan in this class that is difficult to experience as indirect experience. Watching the videos and learning language I could understand Japan a little bit more. We’ve covered many things in the class there were many interesting ones and also some different side of the Japan. No matter its good or not it helped me to understand and make my own opinion. Until now I’m still gaining new impression every moment I go somewhere. Japan is the most attractive country I’ve ever been. It has many different colors each city and each place. I’ve traveled around Kansai over the semester. They have many temples but it’s not same at all. I’ve been to many temples and many place. Each time I felt different impression. Each time I felt I’m in the different country.

"Korean Wave"

[Girls Generation]

(http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=106&oid=001&aid=0004739256)

[yon sa ma]

(http://blog.naver.com/bj3597?Redirect=Log&logNo=110026964778&topReferer=http://cafeblog.search.naver.com&imgsrc=data29/2008/1/25/62/007_bj3597.jpg)

[Tohoshinki]

http://blog.naver.com/agaumi?Redirect=Log&logNo=130078743190&topReferer=http://cafeblog.search.naver.com&imgsrc=20100122_220/agaumi_1264142562156oYBQq_jpg/10012100_agaumi.jpg

Today I want to talk about “The Korean Wave” in Japan which means Korean syndrome.

At first it has happened over the world many years ago. But it became boom when the drama [winter sonata] started.

[Winter Sonata]

http://blog.naver.com/bj3597?Redirect=Log&logNo=110026964778&topReferer=http://cafeblog.search.naver.com&imgsrc=data29/2008/1/25/62/007_bj3597.jpg)

Especially “beyongjun” who is famous actor both in Japan and Korea is leading the Korean wave. When the drama [winter sonata] started in Japan, it was such a big issue. They called the main actor beyongjun as ”yonsama”. In Japan 'Sama' means respect and honor. The more drama came out Japan, The more actor became famous in Japan even actress. And it leads to Korean Music boom. For last few years Korean singers have been super famous and getting bigger in Japan. I’ve seen the news about it many times when I was in Korea but no one took it seriously. However since I’m in Japan, I can feel it every day. Many Japanese friends around me say that they crazy about Korean singer. Sometimes when I seat in CIE, Some Japanese who I’ve never seen came to me and start to talk about Korean singer who they like. At the beginning of semester it was so fresh and I felt proud of my. It’s kind of good experience that I’ve never expected.

[Big Bang]

http://blog.naver.com/thislovegd?Redirect=Log&logNo=40046019590&topReferer=http://cafeblog.search.naver.com&imgsrc=data28/2007/12/31/99/pp07123000012_thislovegd.jpg

There has been many famous Korean singers from Boa to Big bang. The impressive thing is I met an American friend in my seminar house who likes Big Bang so much. She said she didn’t know big bang before she came to Japan. But right now she loves them so much so she bought the T-shirts which big bang designed and bought some stuff to remember them and went to the concert which is hold in Osaka Park.

These are the picture she took in the concert instead of me. (I asked her to take a picture of Japan for my blogging because I couldn’t go there). She didn’t even have a ticket to enter but she went there just with passion to listen the live song. She said she saw them in person and it was nice experience. She looked really happy. I could see many people were there through the pictures she took. And it was weigh more than I thought.

There are a lot of Japanese friends who love Korea so I cannot mention all of them. But I want to introduce my friend “natumi" who loves Korean singer more than I do. I got surprised when I saw her room.

Those are the pictures of her room. There are pictures of Korean singer on the wall and she has CD and some stuff. Moreover she went to the concert many times and even went to Korea many times.

I feel so proud that many foreign people love Korean signer because they pay attention to Korea and want to know more and even some people want to learn Korean and some of them already know or studying it right now. It is so excited that we are the one who spread the new trend and make people know Korea. It’s not just happened in Japan but also all over the Asia and some part of America even now it’s going to Europe.

The reason why Korea wave is important is it’s not just a brief spike in popularity. The age of the people who start to like Korean drama at the beginning was middle of 30 to 40. It lead to young generations.  It’s not just like a famous people such as "Beckham". They don’t go to America to see his house or the place he has been and don’t study English because they like he. But in this case it is different. They come to Korea to see the actor they like even they go to the place which the film was taken and study Korean.

I considered Japanese women as passive women who is quit all the time and never say no to the guys. I thought that all they want to do is to be a good wife and to get a good family. But they got changed a little in certain ways by "Korean wave". They start to express their opinion and now they actually do something they like to get it. I think it also plays a role in change in Japan.

http://blog.naver.com/fkdlwlddy?Redirect=Log&logNo=60113767349&topReferer=http://cafeblog.search.naver.com&imgsrc=20100825_252/fkdlwlddy_1282711617250Yk6YG_jpg/oh_fkdlwlddy.jpg

Young generation just want to be their famous Korean singer. Even girls like girl group singers. They do what singers do. Also their style is influenced by Korean. As I’m Korean, I felt so proud of it and it was interesting aspect of Japan because even korean don't do as much as Japanese do. I hope it’ll be keep going and make a good result.

Kobe

I went to Kobe for weekend. As Kobe is one of Japan’s major international ports, it was influenced by foreign country around the city. I couldn’t enjoy my trip last time because it was end of the March and pretty cold. In my opinion, the best season for traveling Kobe is end of April to May which is neither cold nor hot.



We took off at Sannomiya station and went to north part of the city. And we saw a big village which is filled of exotic sights, buildings, stores and restaurants. I couldn’t believe we were in Japan. I felt like I’m in one of the Europe country. It was amazing. Even “starbucks” were different. I think it was originally House but they just remodeled into the café so we would think like in the 19bcentury café. We went to Kitanomachi square which is located on the top of the hill. So we saw the view over the village and luckily we watched the guy playing performance.

And we walked the street and enjoyed the beautiful classical architectures.

 After that we went back to the station to go to the big shopping street which is kind of big such as Shinsaibashi.

After window-shopping for a while, we went to Chinatown. It was such a big town I’ve never seen.  It was so crowded so we couldn’t look around well but there were so many restaurants and people were eating outside it was kind of interesting.

And then we went to “Bay Area” to see the night view. Along the sea, there were Kobe tower, meriken park, small amusement park and Hotel and big shopping center ( which is called ‘mosaic’,). There were a lot of thing to see. We looked around and relaxed at the coffee shop near the sea and wait for night. It was even more beautiful at night. We took a lot of photos and we couldn’t even say any word because it was so amazing.

On the way to the station, we found a big department and we saw really nice illumination which was so pretty. It was very nice trip I went recently because it was my first time to travel by myself without Japanese or someone who can speak Japanese. So it means a lot for me. And it was nice trip ever.

Sakura in Japan

I want to write about Hanami and skura in Japan. I think most of people in my class will write about it so I tried to find another topic. But I think it is one of the biggest festivals in Japan so I don't want to miss it. I've never seen such a big sakura festival before. We have it but it's not traditional things like Japan. I think Hanami is a big part of Japanese culture and we cannot think of Japan without sakura. Sakura is Japan’s national flower.

I went to “Hanami” with some of my Japanese friends last week. It was my first time to go to see sakura so I was so excited. It was a huge festival than I expected. There were so many people and many stores that sell foods and beers. Everyone brought food and shared with people. So we could taste many kinds of food. And then we played games and take pictures and took a nap. And I had seen many families and a group of people.

[kiyomizudera in kyoto]

I spend a lot of time in Kyoto in order to see sakura for last week. I cannot forget it forever. For this season some temples open at night. I went there to see the night view and it was incredible. I’ve heard that every Japanese come to famous temple for sakura in this season. I went there the last day of festival so it was so crowded. This festival came from in the past and it’s like an annual event in Japan. Many people sit down under the sakura and drink beer and have some food. And they made a lot of noise… I got surprised in this case. Because normally they don’t like to make a noise but they sing a song loudly in the public area and made noise something like that. I think only this season they can break their rule for temporally and get rid of stress.
I think Hanami is social equipment for Japanese who live such an inflexible society to take a breath for few days in a year.

 

[Nijo castle in kyoto]

I took a thusand of pictures in kyoto for last week in my mind. It is so priceless and never forget it.

Leibovitz and Natchwey

[[ Leibovitz ]]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07001/749937-237.stm

http://cafe.naver.com/voda.cafe?iframe_url=/ArticleRead.nhn%3Farticleid=1082&

[[ Natchwey ]] 

http://cafe.naver.com/magazinef.cafe?iframe_url=/ArticleRead.nhn%3Farticleid=463&topReferer=http://cafeblog.search.naver.com%26imgsrc=data40/2008/12/10/230/n1_merona22.jpg

http://www.emptykingdom.com/main/photography/james-nachtwey/

http://www.stockchile.cl/category/de-interes/

 http://www.taringa.net/posts/imagenes/2023418/As%C3%AD-se-ve-un-bombardeo-israel%C3%AD-desde-abajo.html

 Leibovitz and Natchwey are two famous photographers in our generation but since photography is not related to my major, I am not familiar with them. To be able to write about them, I have to research more such as watching a documentary film about them, read their autobiographies and so on.
Both photographers are very famous and well known artist in different fields (of course they work in same field but I thought the reason why they take a photo is different so I just wrote like that ). Leibovitz had worked for rolling stone magazine for commercial and she has taken many famous people's photos(even the queen of the England and obama and many famous stars with family) until now.
I think she has the ability to capture the person’s character. That’s why she didn’t fail to bring out the mood or the character of her models to all the pictures that she took. And also, some advertising company chose her because she has her style in commercial photo shoot. She represents creativity in all of her works. All of her works seem like having a story that make me courious. 
However Natchwey is called " A legend of news photo ". He says "If your pictures aren't good enough, you are not close enough". That's why he goes to a battlefield and takes pictures of the vivid truth. He wants to get an attention from the people to let them that a war can't be justified by any other reasons. Although It’s dangerous to stay there, he might think it’s worth. Leibovitz and Natchwey have different reasons why they take pictures...So it's difficult to compare each other. But the common thing I can see is the values of them through the photos they took. It’s the way to say what they want to say. Every photo they took can impress on people's mind, sometimes easier than a word to understand. It has a really strong power. So I thought This is the reson why visual anthropology is exist. We try to be closed to know who are they, what they do, what they think and learn about them and take photos everything even a small things. Just like what they did. And then we might know and get closed to them a little.